Ariah (28 page)

“
Why would there be a separate entrance?” the bartender asked.

I blushed. I stammered. Vathorem gave me a gentle push and told me he’d see me in the morning. I mounted the steps slowly, one at a time. I felt so profoundly alone then. The panic was close to overwhelming me. A single thought repeated in my brain—
I’ve made a mistake
.
I should’ve stayed behind, this is a mistake
—circled around and around, cutting a little deeper every time, slicing me to ribbons. I slipped the key in the door and let myself in.

Lamps were already lit in the main room. It was a spacious room, with a fireplace on one side, and a stove on the other. A couch, its back to me, and a clutch of overstuffed chairs filled half the room. A table against one wall was covered in detritus: shirts, spools of wire, rags, some unwashed teacups. “Hello?”

The apartment stayed silent. I dropped my pack and crept further into the room, exploring it timidly, gingerly. I was swimming in bitterness just then, angry at Vathorem for leaving me there, angry at myself for having let myself be left, angry at whoever was clearly living in this apartment. “Hello?”

A figure stirred on the couch. A moan of forsaken sleep filled the silence. Short red hair came into view. An arm stretched up, up toward the ceiling, the fingers splayed and reaching. The arm was a dark, dark gray. The length of the fingers and the odd dance they performed was inescapably familiar. “Sorcha?” It came out a half-whisper. It came out full of hope and tenderness.

His face whipped around. His eyes went wide, and his jaw dropped. “Fucking hell! Ariah?”

I have never been so happy to see someone. There are times where emotions are so total, so encompassing, that they transcend language. This was one of those times. I leapt over the back of the couch. I slammed into him, clutching him tight, and we tumbled off the couch together. He laughed, and, oh, the familiarity of that laugh was such a comfort. “Fucking hell,” he said again, but softer this time, with wonder threaded through his voice. He ran a hand through my hair. I struggled with a strange and unforeseen desire to kiss him.

We were a tangle of limbs. I lay half on top of him, drunk on the smell of him. He was right there, just beneath me, exactly as I remembered him. I felt a thousand things in that moment, all confused, but all good. “What are you doing here?”

Sorcha laughed. He sat up against the couch. “What am I doing here? Fuck, Ariah, what are
you
doing here?”

“
I’m here for…I, uh, I’m here for…”

He laughed again, and cupped my cheek. “Ah, don’t worry, you can tell me later. You know why I’m here. Remember? Came with a crew to play the houses here.”

“
You’ve been here all this time?”

“
Yeah. Hey, what’re you doing in this spot, though? This is Kelli’s place. My pa’s best mate Kel, this is his place.”

“
Vathorem…”

His eyes went wide. “Vathorem?”

“
Yes?”

“
Right-hand Vathorem? That Vathorem?”

“
Yes.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. He nodded, frowned slightly, and stood up. “Ah. Ah, I see. I see. This is another thing ’tween you and him, eh? I don’t understand you. You’re your own man, Ariah. You’re not Lor. You don’t have to follow in his footsteps.”

“
You don’t…Sorcha, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said quietly.

“
The hell I don’t!”

“
You don’t. Look, I’m here for me. He’s in Rabatha, and I’m here for me.” I pulled myself up and sat on the couch. I took a breath. “I’m a shaper. I’m here for training. That’s why I’m here, because I’m a shaper,” I said quickly. I stared down at my boots as I said it.

Sorcha sat down next to me. “More than just a little, eh?”

“
More than just a little.”

“
Huh. How long are you gonna be here?”

“
As long as it takes I guess.” I peeked over at him. “Probably a long time.”

Sorcha grinned down at his hands. The air was full of warmth and peace, but that sharp, confusing want of mine still remained. He fingered the lapel of my vest. “Look at these togs. Looking sharp, Ariah. Looking fine.” His voice was husky, a half-step deeper than usual.

I burned a deep, bright red. I laughed. My hand hovered in the air for a second, uncertain, and landed on his. I held his hand against my heart. I stared down at it, his hand in mine. “I have missed you.”

“
I knew you would.”

“
I really have.”

Sorcha kissed me on the cheek. “Same.”

* * *

Sorcha walked me to the palace the next morning. He was bright and unfettered, talking a mile a minute. I lingered close to him. He felt like home. I let his words wash over me, but it was his tone and the timbre of his voice that sunk in. Vathorem sat on the steps of the palace, smoking a pipe, waiting for me. “So that’s him, eh?” Sorcha said.

“
That’s him.”

“
He don’t look like much.”

Vathorem whistled. He pointed at both of us, each in turn, and waved us over. I took Sorcha by the elbow and led him over. “What does he want with me?” Sorcha asked under his breath.

“
We’ll find out.” Vathorem wore an odd, quiet smile when we approached. He sat with his knees hunched up, his chin braced in one hand. “Good morning, Vathorem.”

“
Morning. You sleep well?”

“
I did.”

Vathorem pointed at Sorcha with his pipe. “Who is this?”

“
A friend.”

“
Not a friend you made here.” Vathorem leaned forward and studied Sorcha. “You’re the little one, aren’t you? The youngest brother.”

Sorcha went cold beside me. He drew into himself. “I’m Sorcha. That’s who I am.” He gave Vathorem a slight bow and stepped away.

Vathorem laughed. He patted the step next to him. “So, that one,” he said as I sat down.

“
What about him?”

Vathorem shook his head. “You need solitude.”

“
He’s my roots.”

Vathorem looked over. “Come again?”

I blushed slightly and stared out at the street. “Sorcha, he’s…I think he’s my roots.”

“
Do you think you’re his roots?” Vathorem asked. His voice was measured and careful.

“
I don’t know.”

“
A word of advice, man to man,” he said. “It can be hard when you’re bound to someone tighter than they’re bound to you. Come on, let’s get the day started.”

I followed him into the palace. It was a spare place, but well built. It was a building of large rooms paneled in wood. It was a rugged, well-crafted building, utterly practical, and not at all ostentatious. The palace was two stories tall, and had three wings: one served as quarters, one served as kitchens and pantries, and the central wing was where the government functioned. From the entrance, we came into a waiting hall littered with red elves. They nodded to Vathorem, and he muttered greetings. Through the door at the end of the room was the throne room. The throne sat in the center near the back of the room. It was a large wooden chair built on a raised platform. It was forlorn and isolated. A narrow table in one corner of the room was crowded with people. Dor sat at his mother’s left hand. He nodded to me when we entered. The queen looked up.

She was a hard-eyed, hard-faced woman. She was built of sinew and unbreakable bone. She was strength incarnate, a forbidding person, a person who dared you to challenge her. She wore her authority easily, and she wore it well. “Good. You didn’t get yourself killed,” she said.

Vathorem grinned. “You didn’t either.”

“
You brought a stray.”

Dor leaned towards the queen. “Ma, he mentioned…”

“
You’ve always got a stray with you,” she said. She looked at me, studied me. She gestured for me to come over. I sat in the chair beside her, my heart pounding a terrified rhythm. She caught my eye, and she smiled, and I was gone. “What’s your story, lad?”

“
I’m a shaper.”

“
There’s a shaper under every loose rock, it seems.”

“
Oh, no, not really. We stick together.” There was a slight pause. “No, Dor isn’t one.”

The room grew quiet. The queen leaned forward.

“
He is very smart. Very, very smart,” I said.

Dor left the room. Distantly, I heard Vathorem start to speak, but the queen held out her hand. She smiled wider. “But he’s quiet. Do you think he’s too quiet? Do you think they’ll follow someone so quiet? He is…”

Vathorem read me fast and deep. He read me with such force that I cried out, that I was left shaken and nauseous in the wake of it. He jerked me out of the seat. “Nali, you’re not fighting a war no more,” he whispered. He pulled me out of the room through a side door. Dor sat on a bench in the hall. His hands gripped its underside so tight his knuckles were white. He was rigid, and he was wounded. “Ariah, take off,” Vathorem said. “Give us a moment alone.”

A cold, remote smile cracked across Dor’s face. “Ah, no, he can stay. I’m sure he feels it. What is it you always told Dirva? You lot owe the rest of us an illusion of privacy? Well, hell, Falo, I know it’s just an illusion. He can stay.”

Vathorem sighed. He sat down beside Dor. Slowly he wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulders. Vathorem winced. He drew out the confusion, the anger, like it was poison from a snake bite.

“
I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

Dor looked over at me. “You got nothing to apologize for.”

“
Still,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded.

Vathorem walked me back to the Pickled Bear later that afternoon. “So,” he said. “Now you’ve seen the queen.”

“
She is…regal.”

“
She is ruthless. And she’s good at what she does. And she’s never trusted anyone but herself, not really. Not even her consorts. Not even her boys. She’s a soldier through and through. And the thing is, Dor’s never been a soldier. She plucked him up as her left hand two years ago, and he’s done so well sorting trade, getting roads built. Dor’s got a knack for peacetime. But Nali, Nali don’t know what this place is when there’s a peace. She named him heir because I told her I’d leave court if she didn’t. He don’t know that. He don’t know why she named him, and it cuts him to the quick for her to have named him and for her to keep questioning him like she does. Understand?”

“
I think so.”

Vathorem stopped. He turned me towards him and looked me in the eye. “Secrets is all we are, Ariah, just great tangled nests of stolen secrets. He don’t know my role in this, and he’s not going to find it out from you, all right? Because what we are is a disruption. Society is built on secrets. We sow chaos, you and I. You saw that today. You can’t be blamed for it, but it’s a truth about you. The things I’m to teach you, they are the ways I’ve found to keep from ripping people apart from each other. A lot of it is that you have to learn to let go. Let them live how they live, even if it seems wrong to you. You’re judging Nali hard. I feel it in you. You have to get to a point where you see it and you have your thoughts about it, but they are locked down, understand?”

I didn’t understand. Or rather, I understood but I deeply disagreed. And I had a sense that he disagreed with what he’d said, too. “If that’s true, why force her to name Dor?”

Vathorem dropped his face down. A curtain of steel-gray hair swung between us. His walls flew up. I knew I’d touched a nerve, but what nerve, and why? “Ariah, I’m only telling you this once, so listen close. That boy is far more mine than hers by now. And this damned country, I fought for it as long and as hard as she did. I got my loyalty to Rethnali, I most certainly do, but a man has many loyalties. In me, there is Dor and Pekka, there is Dirva and Yohanni and one day there might even be you. There is Vilahna, and then there is Rethnali. Roots, Ariah. Think on your roots. Think on the choices you’ll make, the things you’ll do to keep them growing.”